


We Are Broken

by dragonwings948



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: (is anything canon when it comes to Ace??), (kinda??) - Freeform, Abandonment, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anger, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Depression, Episode: TV Movie: The Enemy Within (Doctor Who), Feels, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Post Audio 103: The Girl Who Never Was, Post-Regeneration (Doctor Who), Regeneration (Doctor Who), Regeneration Angst (Doctor Who), Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25584418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonwings948/pseuds/dragonwings948
Summary: One day Ace gets a phone call and all of her worst nightmares come true.
Relationships: Eighth Doctor & Ace McShane, Seventh Doctor & Ace McShane, The Doctor (Doctor Who) & Ace McShane
Comments: 12
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I read the fic [E is for Execution](https://archiveofourown.org/works/193418) and was killed by feels, so then I immediately got this idea. 
> 
> I guess this is technically not canon since "officially" Ace left Seven on her own but I mean...I'm pretty sure I mention at least three different conflicting canon things in this fic alone so... *shrugs* What is canon when it comes to Doctor Who? 
> 
> Title from the song by Paramore. I had the chorus stuck in my head while I wrote this and...ouch. 
> 
> Enjoy. And I'm sorry.

_“I’ll see you soon then, Professor?” Ace couldn’t get rid of the nagging worry that she’d never see him again. He was going right into the lair of the Daleks, for Pete’s sake, and he wouldn’t let her come with him._

_The Doctor smiled, completely unperturbed. “A day or two at the most.” His eyebrows rose as if a thought had just occurred to him. He took his umbrella from where it had been hanging from his jacket pocket and offered it to her. “Look after it for me.”_

_The implication was momentous. He never went_ anywhere _without his umbrella. Ace took it slowly. She wasn’t sure if the gesture made her feel better or worse._

_“Please come back.” She said it seriously, every pretence of putting on a brave face gone._

_The Doctor leaned forward and tapped her on the nose. “Be here when I do.”_

* * *

The telephone rang.

Ace hated having a phone in her flat. Half the time she didn't even want to talk to the person on the other end, so really it just served as a nuisance.

But she was right next to it and had no excuse not to pick it up, so she did.

“Hello?” she sighed half-heartedly, expecting that annoying bloke she'd mistakenly given her number to the other night or another reporter weirdo that had connected her to the young girl that had disappeared from Perivale so long ago.

“Hello, is this Dorothy McShane?”

Ace straightened up, both at the sound of her real name and the unfamiliar voice with an American accent.

“Who wants to know?”

“My name is Lauren Hope,” the woman said in a detached, professional manner. “I work at Walker General Hospital in San Francisco.” She paused, like that should mean something to Ace.

“San Francisco?” Ace echoed.

“Yes. We had a John Doe brought in about a week ago and no one has been able to identify him. However, they found some kind of ticket in his pocket with your name on it. It took us some time to locate you.”

Ace blinked, trying to take in the information. Who would—? But the answer was obvious because even after months of no word from him he was still at the forefront of her mind. Her eyes flashed briefly to the umbrella leaning against the wall by the door of her flat. It had been his promise to come back and she had kept it there ever since, just waiting for the day when she'd be able to return it to him.

“A week ago? Is he okay?”

There was a brief silence on the other end. Something about the pause made Ace’s gut clench with worry.

“There’s a question about his identity—”

_“Is he okay?”_ Ace punctuated each word like its own sentence.

“He was shot, Ms. McShane.” The woman’s voice softened a little. “He was brought in right afterwards, but unfortunately, he didn't make it through the procedure.”

Ace’s strangled the phone in her grasp. “He's dead?” She felt her heart begin to race. _No, no, no, no…_

“Yes, I'm afraid so. I'm very sorry.”

Ace breathed out. Breathed in. This couldn't be real. It had to be a dream. A hospital in America couldn't be calling her up to tell her the Doctor was dead. She wouldn’t even believe it except…he hadn’t come for her. He’d known exactly when and where he’d dropped her off, but it had been four months, and he hadn’t come for her.

He’d _promised_ to come back. And the only thing that could have made him break that promise…

She fell into the chair right next to the phone. Little by little, her body began to shake. She forgot about the phone she was holding to her ear.

“Ms. McShane, I—”

She slowly put the phone back into the cradle. She stared at the wall.

She looked over at the umbrella.

And burst into tears.


	2. Chapter 2

_Eight months later_

Time became a blur of numbness and drinking too much. Of living alone, finding her gaze wandering to the umbrella that she still kept by the doorway. Of pushing the truth back to the furthest corners of her mind.

Eventually, when the hospital wouldn't stop calling her, she told them that his name was the Doctor and he had no family or possessions. They informed her that the body was missing. Try as she might to repress it, the fact had sent a spark of hope through Ace. Maybe the Doctor wasn't really dead.

But again, she was faced with the cold, hard fact: if he were alive, he would have come for her by now.

She stuffed her bomber jacket to the back of her closet where she’d never see it. She didn't let anyone call her Ace anymore, or even just McShane; she was only Dorothy. The umbrella was the only reminder of her life with the Doctor, representing her last shred of hope. She often thought about how it would be sitting there until the day she died.

Sure, she’d had plans for a normal life. In the most recent years of travelling with the Doctor, she’d had this inkling of an idea about a charity she could create to help kids that were just like her when the Doctor had found her. She’d even set up a secret fund for it when she'd been really mad at the Doctor one day when they’d visited the recent past.

And that was why she couldn't touch the money now. Because he’d tell her not to. He’d chide her for setting up the account in the first place and tell her there were other ways. If he were alive she might have felt brazen enough to do it — but not anymore.

She worked simple minimum-wage jobs just to get by. That was all she did: _get by_. The Doctor would ask her what she was living for, but the Doctor wasn't there, so Ace always told that voice to shut up.

And then came the day that the doorbell rang.

Ace stared at the door. No one ever came to visit her, especially not at eleven o’clock at night.

“Probably just some kids playing a trick,” she muttered to herself, returning her attention to the telly that she hadn’t really been watching anyway.

The doorbell buzzed again. Immediately afterwards, Ace could hear that someone was fiddling with the door handle. She jumped to her feet, weighing the risk of running to her room to grab her baseball bat.

The decision was immediately made for her as the door opened inward, revealing a young man in fancy dress standing framed in the doorway. He beamed a wide grin at her.

“Oi!” Ace clenched her hands into fists but stood back, ready for a swift punch. “How’d you get in?”

The man’s eyes widened. He raised his hands disarmingly in front of him, clutching a thin, pen-like device in his right hand. A device that looked very familiar.

“Ace, Ace, wait! It's me.”

Ace frowned. No one had called her that since…

She steeled her jaw and raised her fists. “Start talking, pretty boy.”

“Pretty?” he echoed with a bewildered frown. He shook his head. “Look, Ace, it's _me._ I’m the Doctor.” He grinned as he gestured to himself.

Ace lowered her fists a fraction. She studied him again. _No._

 _“_ No way. Try again, mate. What are you? An alien? Someone trying to trick me?”

He huffed an incredulous laugh, placing his hands on his chest. "No, Ace, I promise. I've regenerated, that’s all.” He looked sincere. He looked _mad,_ just like the Doctor. But she didn't want to believe him.

His expression fell slack with weariness. “Can I come in? Please?”

Ace blinked, trying to make this all fit in her head. First, a hospital in America calls her and tells her the Doctor is dead. Next, this…this _imposter_ shows up and has the audacity to claim that he is the Doctor.

But what if he _was_ the Doctor? Then that meant…

Anger—no, _rage—_ welled up inside of her. She was at the door in three huge steps, and before the man, whoever he was, could move a muscle, Ace had him gripped by the cravat and dragged him inside. “Get in here, Lord Byron.”

He started to say something, but the breath whooshed out of him in a huff as Ace pushed him none too gently into the wall. His eyes widened with shock as she raised herself onto her toes to meet his eyes.

“Ace—”

 _“No!”_ It came out as a yell in his face, as a shout to the universe in denial of the living Hell that her life had been over the past year. “Listen to me! You can’t be the Doctor, because the Doctor would have come _back!”_ To her chagrin, the last word came out as a sob. “And if you are him in some new body and you _left me here to rot,_ then—then I have nothing to say to you.”

His face crumpled in disappointment. “Ace—”

 _“I thought you were dead!”_ The words seemed to stun the whole world into silence. Ace breathed hard. It had taken every ounce of emotion within her to utter the phrase, to finally make it a reality.

“I thought you were dead,” she repeated, softer. Her fingers ached from gripping him so tightly and she let go. The Doctor didn’t move.

“I’m sorry.” His soft words broke through the stillness.

Ace shook her head and huffed an ironic laugh. Her voice came out flat, a stark contrast to the emotion that had been pouring out of her moments ago. “Yeah, well that doesn’t erase the past year, does it?” She backed away and looked at the umbrella standing against the wall. “Get out.”

He reached out a hand. Ace took another step back. She didn’t meet his eyes.

“Will you come with me?”

Anger swelled up within her again and she stayed silent for a moment, fighting the shout that wanted to explode from her mouth. “Try that eleven months ago. _Get. Out.”_

She felt his eyes on her. He was only a few feet away, but there was an entire year and a whole universe between them. Tears stung Ace’s eyes, but she wouldn’t let him see her cry.

“I’m sorry, Ace. I really, truly am.” He started on his way out but paused with his foot out the door. Ace glanced up to see his eyes on the umbrella. She knew that if he tried to take it that would be the last straw, the thing that might just make her tackle him to the ground and strangle him—

But without another word, he stepped out the door and closed it behind him. Ace let out a long sigh. She thought she could hear the sound of the TARDIS dematerialising and wanted to peek through the window to be sure, but she stopped herself. The longing within her to travel in that blue box again warred with the part of her that simply wouldn’t accept that the Doctor was alive and that _he hadn’t come for her._

 _But he did,_ she reminded herself. _He_ just _did._

“Too late,” she murmured sadly. Now she knew beyond doubt that the umbrella would never move from its spot. “Too late.”


	3. Chapter 3

_One year later_

The attempted alien invasion was over before Ace even knew it was happening.

She was on her way home from work when she was frozen stiff by the sight of the street in front of her flat looking like a war zone. Pavement was torn up like paper. Scorch marks riddled the street. Several fires blazed among cars and debris.

Police were everywhere. She would’ve already guessed at the cause of the destruction, but the presence of a bulky UNIT truck confirmed her suspicions. They hadn’t quite finished taping off the area yet, so Ace was able to slip by some debris to get to her flat. She _was_ curious, but she was also tired, and thinking of aliens reminded her too much of—

An agonised groan pulled her from her thoughts. She followed the source of the sound to see a hand twitching from beneath a huge slab of concrete.

“Oh my god.” Ace rushed over, and amid her hurried steps, she connected the hand to a face—a face that she knew.

Flashes of memory pricked at her brain: a dark night, his face shaded in shadow, her anger all spilling out on him. The words she’d repeated to herself and regretted over and over again.

Without even thinking she crouched down beside him and tested the weight of the concrete. She could hardly lift it with her hands, so she sat on the ground, leaned her back against a streetlight right behind her, braced her feet on the slab, and pushed with all her might. Her legs felt like they were on fire for a moment and she grunted, but she managed to shift it off. A long, wheezing sigh of relief followed from the broken body on the ground.

Ace scrabbled over to him, trying to catch her breath. His brown curls were plastered to his sickly pale face. There was blood at the corners of his lips and his green velvet jacket was torn in several places.

“Doctor?” She smoothed his hair away from his face. He wasn’t going to regenerate again, was he? She wasn’t sure she could bear to actually watch him die.

His breath rattled as he opened his cold blue eyes. “Ace?” he asked, blinking at her. He turned his head to the side and coughed, more blood trickling from his lips.

“Hey, hey. Shhhh.” She ran her hand over his head soothingly. She wanted to do more, but moving him at the moment was out of the question; that slab of concrete had probably broken some ribs and it was likely that a vital organ had been punctured. She glanced up at all the hubbub behind her, but the scene of the battle was so far removed that no one had noticed the Doctor lying there.

“TARDIS,” she said gently. “Is it far?”

He seemed to struggle to speak, his face contorting in pain with each word. “In…your flat. Had to…make sure you were safe.”

She looked up. She could see the door of her flat on the third floor. “Okay, I’m going to go get some help.” She started to stand up.

 _“No.”_ The word was uttered with such force that Ace paused. The Doctor coughed up more blood and Ace turned her head away, unable to watch. Sometime, in the year since she’d turned him away, she’d come to accept him as the Doctor, and she hadn’t known it until just now. This was her best friend, dying on the ground right in front of her.

“No use,” he continued with a resigned sigh. “I can feel it.”

Ace saw a faint glow coming from his skin and shook her head. “Look at me, Doctor.”

Inexplicably a smile broke out on his face, a grin of pure happiness. Ace was so thrown off by it that she had to ask: “What?”

“You called me Doctor.” Something in his eyes changed. Where before there was resignation, now there was hope and determination.

Ace gazed in wonder. It was like he had regained the will to live all in a moment. “Yeah, well listen here, Doctor.” She looked directly into his eyes so he knew that she meant it. “I’m not letting you die. I don’t care what time and the universe say; you’re not dying here with me. Last time I wasn’t there to help you, but this time you can’t get rid of me.”

The Doctor smiled, his expression softening despite the excruciating pain he had to be in. Ace smiled back before turning her head and yelling at the top of her lungs, _“Oi!_ Wounded time lord over here!” She turned back to the Doctor and shrugged. “I reckon that’ll get the UNIT people’s attention.”

His body shook like he was trying to laugh. “I…”

“Don’t try to talk.” She placed a gentle hand on his arm. “Save it for when you’re better.”

A few UNIT soldiers came to her aid in an instant. Before Ace could even explain who she was, a woman (the captain, apparently) recognised her as Dorothy “Ace” McShane. Though Ace found that a little spooky, she cut to the chase and told her that the TARDIS was just up in her flat on the third floor. The soldiers immediately sprang into action. They left instantly and returned with a stretcher. Together with Ace they carefully lifted the Doctor onto it. His eyes closed again as they carried him up the stairs, but Ace could tell he looked more peaceful, like he was asleep. The glow from his skin had gone. His chest still moved up and down.

For the first time Ace had seen him lying there on the ground, she relaxed a little.

They went into her flat and sure enough, the TARDIS was parked right in the middle of her living room.

“Sorry, Doctor,” Ace mumbled as she moved his cravat out of the way and unbuttoned his collar so she could find the chain around his neck. Another flash of memory came back: seizing his cravat and shoving him roughly against the wall. Ace winced. “I’m really sorry,” she added as a barely audible whisper.

She pulled the chain over his head and saw the TARDIS key dangling at the end. She inserted it into the lock and the door swung open easily with its signature creak.

“Go ahead in. I’ll catch up in a second.”

The UNIT soldiers immediately marched inside and Ace was mildly surprised that she didn’t hear any kind of exclamations about _“Bigger on the inside!”_ She supposed they were trained to know about all of that stuff.

She turned back to face the door of her flat and snatched something that had been leaning against the wall untouched for far too long. Then she followed the UNIT soldiers into the TARDIS and considered the irony as _she_ was the one who stopped to gawk in the TARDIS’ doorway.

“Blimey,” she muttered.

“Which way, Ms. McShane?” the captain asked.

Ace recovered herself from gazing at the startlingly different console room and glanced at the Doctor. Even in the dim lighting, she could tell that some of the colour had returned to his skin. His body began to shift slightly.

“That’s right,” Ace remembered with a smile. “The nanites!”

“I’m sorry?”

“The TARDIS has these little robot things that can be programmed to fill the console room. They can repair almost any injury. They’re invisible, but they work fast. He must have programmed them before he left.” Ace wondered exactly what that meant; had he _expected_ this to happen?

The UNIT soldiers blinked at her, apparently not interested in her explanation.

“You can leave him here,” she told them. “He’ll be all right now.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Thanks for the help.”

They walked over to a rather thin, worn-looking rug and gently set the stretcher down. the Doctor began to stir as the UNIT soldiers silently filed out of the TARDIS. Ace sat down beside the Doctor, placed the umbrella behind her, and watched the UNIT soldiers go.

“Life and soul, they are.”

“I’ve never been all that fond of soldiers myself.”

Ace turned her head to watch the Doctor sit up slowly, putting a hand to his head.

“Doctor!” She wanted to leap onto him in a hug and never let go, but she still wasn’t sure he was entirely healed.

“Ace.” He smiled. “Thank you.”

Ace shrugged. “Yeah, don’t mention it.”

“No, I really mean it.” His expression clouded over. “Without you, I would have died. I would have regenerated again. And what a pity it would have been, too; I’m only just getting used to this body.”

“Yeah, and what was that about?” Ace asked. “You programmed the nanites to be in the console room. Were you _expecting_ to get all bloodied?”

She noticed clear hesitation before he answered.

“Well, no, not _expected,_ necessarily, but I knew it was a possibility. The Ghuunkad are a particularly nasty race of warlords, and when I came here to stop them, I prepared for the worst.”

Ace gazed at him, remembering. “But that look in your eyes when I first saw you…it was like you wanted to die.”

He didn’t meet her eyes. “I thought you hated me.” He reached up to his neck, buttoned his collar back, and straightened his cravat. Ace would have found it humorous, considering that his clothes were scorched and ripped and his appearance was like that of a man half-dead, but his words forced her to reflect on the thoughts she’d dwelled on almost constantly for the past year. She considered berating him for changing the subject, but he had almost just died; she figured she could humour him.

“No,” she said, letting out a long sigh. “I could never hate you.”

“You never even let me explain.” He still seemed to be focused more on his appearance than their conversation as he ran his fingers through his hair as if trying to tame it.

“I didn’t want you to. I couldn’t think of any way you could justify leaving me for all that time.”

He shifted uncomfortably, his frown deepening. “There isn’t any way to justify it other than my own stupidity.” His eyes flashed to hers for only a moment before staring at the carpet as he adjusted his collar. “I wouldn’t have said that the last time. I _would have_ tried to justify it. But now…” He sighed, letting his arms drop to his sides. “I understand. I know the pain of someone leaving and never coming back.” He finally looked into her eyes like he was touching her very soul with a single look. “I’m sorry, Ace. I never meant to hurt you.”

A lump formed in Ace’s throat. His apology was so sincere, unlike anything her Doctor had ever uttered. She could see the pain clearly in his eyes and wondered at the story behind it, but she’d give him the time to tell her when he wanted to.

“I’m sorry, too.” She clasped her hands together in her lap. “I shouldn’t have acted the way I did, no matter what happened between us. I was upset and scared. I didn’t want to accept that the Doctor was gone yet.”

“He’s not gone,” the Doctor said gently. “He’s right here.”

Ace felt her lips twitch into a half-smile. “Yeah, I know that now.” She reached behind her and grabbed the umbrella. She thought of all the times she’d looked at it longingly, knowing it was the promise of a future that would never be.

But she’d been wrong.

She handed it over to him. “Here. I think it’s about time I gave this back.”

The Doctor’s eyes widened, and Ace knew the importance of the gesture wasn’t lost on him. He took it from her carefully, like it was the most important thing in the world, and smiled at her.

“Come with me.” It wasn’t a question this time, but an entreaty. He looked at her with hope in his eyes, and Ace grinned.

“You stay right there.” She jumped to her feet. “I need to go get my jacket.”


End file.
